Top 100 Cowley Quotes
#2. All my editors since Malcolm Cowley have had instructions to leave my prose exactly as I wrote it. In the days of Malcolm Cowley, with 'On the Road' and 'The Dharma Bums', I had no power to stand by my style for better or for worse.
Jack Kerouac
#3. Joseph F. Smith probably authorized Apostles Clawson and Cowley to marry their plural wives after the second Manifesto of 1904, since he did authorize a close friend to perform one plural marriage as late as 1906, and o.k.'d another one that occurred in 1907.
D. Michael Quinn
#4. Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.
Abraham Cowley
#5. Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.
Abraham Cowley
#6. The charms of women were never more powerful never inspired such achievements, as in those immortal periods, when they could neither read nor write.
Hannah Cowley
#7. Every body about me seem'd happy but every body seem'd in a hurry to be happy somewhere else.
Hannah Cowley
#8. The germ of a story is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood.
Malcolm Cowley
#9. The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.
Abraham Cowley
#10. There is a story, no doubt apocryphal, that gamers at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, have many times replayed the 1942 Battle of Midway - but have never been able to produce an American victory.
Robert Cowley
#11. Fill the bowl with rosy wine, around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile, like wine and roses, smile.
Abraham Cowley
#12. The thing to hold onto, though, during the tough first year, is that you can make a real and genuine difference to your children's lives. And at some point in the future they may look back and remember you as someone who really mattered to them. What other career could offer such a wonderful reward?
Sue Cowley
#13. His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was always in the right.
Abraham Cowley
#14. What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving or paying all kinds of ceremonies!
Abraham Cowley
#16. I learned from her that the people who said you only live once were not readers. As often as you open a book, you come to new places and live new lives.
Joy Cowley
#17. Much will always wanting be
To him who much desires.
Abraham Cowley
#18. May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends,
And many books, both true.
Abraham Cowley
#19. I'm a slow starter, but it's time to flip on the switch.
Joe Cowley
#21. The Sunflow'r, thinking 'twas for him foul shame To nap by daylight, strove t' excuse the blame; It was not sleep that made him nod, he said, But too great weight and largeness of his head.
Abraham Cowley
#22. Nothing is to come, and nothing past: But an eternal now, does always last.
Abraham Cowley
#23. All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
Abraham Cowley
#24. Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
None ever yet made haste enough to live.
Abraham Cowley
#25. For the whole world, without a native home, Is nothing but a prison of larger room.
Abraham Cowley
#26. In matters like writing and painting, a man does what he has to do - if he has to write, why then, he writes; and if he doesn't feel the urgent need of writing, there are dozens of professions in which it is easier to earn a comfortable living.
Malcolm Cowley
#27. Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.
Abraham Cowley
#28. When Israel was from bondage led,Led by the Almighty's handFrom out of foreign land,The great sea beheld and fled.
Abraham Cowley
#29. Does not the passage of Moses and the Israelites into the Holy Land yield incomparably more poetic variety than the voyages of Ulysses or Aeneas?
Abraham Cowley
#30. Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!
Abraham Cowley
#31. Our yesterday's to-morrow now is gone,
And still a new to-morrow does come on.
We by to-morrow draw out all our store,
Till the exhausted well can yield no more.
Abraham Cowley
#33. Thus would I double my life's fading space;For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
Abraham Cowley
#34. Authors are sometimes like tomcats: They distrust all the other toms but they are kind to kittens.
Malcolm Cowley
#36. Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true, Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne'er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov'd and loving me.
Abraham Cowley
#37. Curs'd be that wretch (Death's factor sure) who brought Dire swords into the peaceful world, and taught Smiths (who before could only make The spade, the plough-share, and the rake) Arts, in most cruel wise Man's left to epitomize!
Abraham Cowley
#38. As for being much known by sight, and pointed out, I cannot comprehend the honor that lies withal; whatsoever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best doctor.
Abraham Cowley
#39. Age is not different from earlier life as long as you're sitting down.
Malcolm Cowley
#40. Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last.
Abraham Cowley
#41. The getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey.
Abraham Cowley
#42. Ere I descend to th' grave,
May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends, and many books.
Abraham Cowley
#43. I never cease to be amazed why some of my friends became famous and others, just as talented, didn't. I've come to suspect it's a matter of wanting fame or not, and those who don't want it, don't get it.
Malcolm Cowley
#44. Man is too near all kinds of beasts,
a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture.
Abraham Cowley
#45. Even rats can only be kicked around for so long before they've had enough.
Joe Cowley
#46. But what is woman? Only one of nature's agreeable blunders.
Abraham Cowley
#47. What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
Abraham Cowley
#49. Be kind and considerate with your criticism ... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.
Malcolm Cowley
#50. She rested her head on Esther's shoulder and let the fuzzy warmth of her hug flow through her. It was the kind of warmth that clicked your bones back into place, smoothed out your muscles and made your blood sing a soft lullaby all the way around your body.
Joy Cowley
#51. This only grant me, that my means may lie too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Abraham Cowley
#52. Stones of small worth may lie unseen by day, But night itself does the rich gem betray.
Abraham Cowley
#53. Nothing in Nature's sober found,
But an eternal Health goes round.
Fill up the Bowl then, fill it high
Fill all the Glasses there; for why
Should every Creature Drink but I?
Why, Man of Morals, tell me why?
Abraham Cowley
#54. I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a little feast ...
Abraham Cowley
#55. Who that has reason, and his smell,
Would not among roses and jasmin dwell?
Abraham Cowley
#56. Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.
Abraham Cowley
#57. Hope! fortune's cheating lottery; when for one prize an hundred blanks there be!
Abraham Cowley
#59. Come, my best friends, my best books, and lead me on.
Abraham Cowley
#60. Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discoverAnd not to me, thy no less silent lover?
Abraham Cowley
#61. Ah yet, ere I descend to the grave, May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, and many books, both true, both wise and both delightful too.
Abraham Cowley
#62. Thus each extreme to equal danger tends, Plenty, as well as Want, can sep'rate friends.
Abraham Cowley
#63. It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.
Abraham Cowley
#64. Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you.
Malcolm Cowley
#65. Richard Foster's excellent book Celebration of Discipline
Ian Cowley
#66. Any fiction should be a story. In any story there are three elements: persons, a situation, and the fact that in the end something has changed. If nothing has changed, it isn't a story.
Malcolm Cowley
#67. But you drank your black coffee by choice, believeng that Paris was sufficient alcohol.
Malcolm Cowley
#68. To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.
Abraham Cowley
#69. I have been five minutes too late all my life-time!
Hannah Cowley
#70. Awake, awake, my Lyre!And tell thy silent master's humble taleIn sounds that may prevail;Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:Though so exalted sheAnd I so lowly beTell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Abraham Cowley
#72. I have a personality. The fans like a guy with personality.
Joe Cowley
#73. Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
Abraham Cowley
#74. The world's a scene of changes, and to be constant, in nature were inconstancy.
Abraham Cowley
#75. A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
Abraham Cowley
#76. There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for, if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter.
Abraham Cowley
#77. There have been fewer friends on earth than kings.
Abraham Cowley
#78. God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
Abraham Cowley
#79. Writing offers fairly large rewards to a few successful people, but the rewards come late, and most writers are failures.
Malcolm Cowley
#81. Banish business, banish sorrow. To the gods belongs tomorrow.
Abraham Cowley
#82. Build yourself a book-nest to forget the world without.
Abraham Cowley
#83. Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.
Abraham Cowley
#84. Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise,
He who defers this work from day to day,
Does on a river's bank expecting stay,
Till the whole stream, which stopped him, should be gone,
That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.
Abraham Cowley
#85. Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces, and yet so humble too as not to scorn the meanest country cottages.
Abraham Cowley
#86. And I myself a Catholic will be,
So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee.
Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow
On us, the Poets militant below.
Abraham Cowley
#87. Poets by Death are conquer'd but the wit Of poets triumphs over it.
Abraham Cowley
#88. If I see someone down, I'll try to give him a good laugh.
Joe Cowley
#89. Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends; not on number, but the choice of friends.
Abraham Cowley
#90. It is the fear of being as dependent as a young child, while not being loved as a child is loved, but merely being kept alive against one's will.
Malcolm Cowley
#91. Hope! of all ills that men endure, the only cheap and universal cure.
Abraham Cowley
#92. Put cotton in your ears and pebbles in your shoes. Pull on rubber gloves. Smear Vaseline over your glasses, and there you have it: instant old age.
Malcolm Cowley
#93. Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves
As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
Abraham Cowley
#94. Who lets slip fortune, her shall never find: Occasion once past by, is bald behind.
Abraham Cowley
#95. Happy insect! what can be In happiness compared to thee? Fed with nourishment divine, The dewy morning's gentle wine! Nature waits upon thee still, And thy verdant cup does fill; 'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread, Nature's self's thy Ganymede.
Abraham Cowley
#96. I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that ... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature.
Abraham Cowley
#98. "We may talk what we please," he cries in his enthusiasm for the oldest of the arts, "of lilies, and lions rampant, and spread eagles, in fields d'or or d'argent; but, if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms."
Abraham Cowley
#99. Books should, not Business, entertain the Light;
And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
Abraham Cowley
#100. See with the eyes of love and a thing becomes beautiful. See with the eyes of hate and things are ugly.
Joy Cowley
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